er
clearly, grimly. He looked at her. She was plump, but not too short,
with a generous width between the hips; a broad full bosom, but firm;
round arms and quick slim legs; a fine sturdy throat. The curve between
arm and breast made a graceful gracious line ... Working in a bond
office ... Working in a bond office ... There was nothing in the Bible
about working in a bond office. Here was a woman built for
child-bearing.

She thought him senile, negligible.

In March Nettie had in a sewing woman for a week. She had her two or
three times a year. A hawk-faced woman of about forty-nine, with a
blue-bottle figure and a rapacious eye. She sewed in the dining room and
there was a pleasant hum of machine and snip of scissors and murmur of
conversation and rustle of silky stuff; and hot savoury dishes for
lunch. She and old man Minick became great friends. She even let him
take out bastings. This when Nettie had gone out from two to four,
between fittings.

He chuckled and waggled his head. "I expect to be paid regular
assistant's wages for this," he said.

"I guess you don't need any wages, Mr. Minick," the woman said. "I guess
you're pretty well fixed."

"Oh, well, I can't complain." (Five hundred a year.)

"Complain! I should say not! If I was to complain it'd be different.
Work all day to keep myself; and nobody to come home to at night."

"Widow, ma'am?"

"Since I was twenty. Work, work, that's all I've had. And lonesome! I
suppose you don't know what lonesome is."

"Oh, don't I!" slipped from him. He had dropped the bastings.

The sewing woman flashed a look at him from the cold hard eye. "Well,
maybe you do. I suppose living here like this, with sons and daughters,
ain't so grand, for all your money. Now me, I've always managed to keep
my own little place that I could call home, to come back to. It's only
two rooms, and nothing to rave about, but it's home. Evenings I just
cook and fuss around. Nobody to fuss for, but I fuss, anyway. Cooking,
that's what I love to do. Plenty of good food, that's what folks need to
keep their strength up." Nettie's lunch that day had been rather scant.

She was there a week. In Nettie's absence she talked against her. He
protested, but weakly. Did she give him egg-nogs? Milk? Hot toddy? Soup?
Plenty of good rich gravy and meat and puddings? Well! That's what folks
needed when they weren't so young any more. Not that he looked old. My,
no. Sprier than many young boys, and h